If people can read, she says, they can find information to make good decisions. About 1 in 3 people visit the Free Library to learn something about health, Ms. Reardon says. To help them, she has created a medical advisory group with doctors and nurses. The group is figuring out ways to make it even easier for people to look up health information at the library, Ms. Reardon says. Ms. Reardon says she didn’t always want to be a librarian. She wanted to become a spy. Her father told her that was “silly” because her expressive face would easily expose secrets. After thinking about it, she gave up the spy idea. Eventually, her love of reading and of helping people led her to become a librarian. Reading was an escape for Ms. Reardon when she was growing up. She had eight siblings. To gain some independence and get away from her brothers’ teasing, she would walk to the nearby library in her neighborhood in Yonkers, N.Y. Once there, she would search the shelves for interesting books. Siobhan Reardon Through reading, people can make good decisions The word why is really important for children to use. They should ask it often, even if it annoys their parents and teachers, says Siobhan Reardon. The answers will help children become excited about learning and then they will learn more. She makes sure that children and adults can learn a lot. As president of the Free Library of Philadelphia, she runs a library system that has 54 branches and employs about 700 people. In 2012, the library system had almost 800,000 children’s books, and nearly 300,000 people attended children’s programs. Health might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about a public library. But Ms. Reardon says libraries help make neighborhoods healthy in a number of ways: They are safe places to be. They provide a lot of information that encourages healthy lifestyles. And, of course, libraries promote reading.